Social and cultural anthropology Books
Greystone Books,Canada Feasting Wild: In Search of the Last Untamed Food
Book SynopsisA New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Selection “Delves into not only what we eat around the world, but what we once ate and what we have lost since then.”—The New York Times Book Review Two centuries ago, nearly half the North American diet was foraged, hunted, or caught in the wild. Today, so-called “wild foods” are becoming expensive luxuries, served to the wealthy in top restaurants. Meanwhile, people who depend on wild foods for survival and sustenance find their lives forever changed as new markets and roads invade the world’s last untamed landscapes. In Feasting Wild, geographer and anthropologist Gina Rae La Cerva embarks on a global culinary adventure to trace our relationship to wild foods. Throughout her travels, La Cerva reflects on how colonialism and the extinction crisis have impacted wild spaces, and reveals what we sacrifice when we domesticate our foods —including biodiversity, Indigenous and women’s knowledge, a vital connection to nature, and delicious flavors. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, La Cerva investigates the violent “bush meat” trade, tracking elicit delicacies from the rainforests of the Congo Basin to the dinner tables of Europe. In a Danish cemetery, she forages for wild onions with the esteemed staff of Noma. In Sweden––after saying goodbye to a man known only as The Hunter––La Cerva smuggles freshly-caught game meat home to New York in her suitcase, for a feast of “heartbreak moose.” Thoughtful, ambitious, and wide-ranging, Feasting Wild challenges us to take a closer look at the way we eat today, and introduces an exciting new voice in food journalism. “A memorable, genre-defying work that blends anthropology and adventure.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, New York Times-bestselling author of The Sixth Extinction “A food book with a truly original take.”—Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Salt: A World History “An intense and illuminating travelogue... offer[ing] a corrective to the patriarchal white gaze promoted by globetrotting eaters like Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern. La Cerva combines environmental history with feminist memoir to craft a narrative that's more in tune with recent works by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Helen Macdonald and Elizabeth Rush.”—The Wall Street JournalTrade ReviewAn Amazon Best of June pick! “Delves into not only what we eat around the world, but what we once ate and what we have lost since then.” —A New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Selection “La Cerva’s beautifully written narrative is as tantalizing as it is edifying.” —Publishers Weekly STARRED review “It is rare these days to find a food book with a truly original take on food. Feasting Wild gives you a great deal to think about and at the same time is a pleasure to read.” —Mark Kurlansky, New York Times bestselling author of Salmon: A Fish, the Earth, and the History of Their Common Fate and Salt: A World History “An extraordinary book. My mouth watered, my mind expanded, and my heart broke and was remade through this superb writing.” —David George Haskell, author of Pulitzer finalist The Forest Unseen “This is the food book I’ve always wanted to read—a witty, illuminating, and beautifully written travelogue that rightly centers the historical role of women and the importance of Indigenous knowledge. Throw away the trite faux-wisdom of dietitians and gorge yourself instead on the charming platter that Gina Rae La Cerva has served up.” —Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes “A delightful culinary travel book.” —Outside Magazine “La Cerva reveals the landscape in brightly lit detail and gives generously of herself, and the result makes for a suitably satisfying feast.” —Science Magazine “By turns lyrical, melancholy, and invigorating, Feasting Wild is an enthralling and necessary meditation on what it means to love the feral in a world increasingly of our making.” —Taras Grescoe, author of Possess the Air, Straphanger, and Bottomfeeder “Eloquent and utterly original. Page after page I savored the thrill of a sentence driving home a surprising new way to think about the world.” —George Johnson, author of The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments “Feasting Wild is a rich literary banquet, its pages a smorgasbord of intrepid travelogue, unflinching memoir, and keen ecological history. Where the worldviews of Cheryl Strayed and Michael Pollan converge, you’ll find this perspective, big-hearted, beautifully crafted book.” —Ben Goldfarb, author of Eager: The surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter “La Cerva demonstrates her ability for diligent observation, and […] offers glimpses of human activities that have grown increasingly rare.” —Kirkus Reviews “A curious, passionate, and beautifully poetic book. La Cerva uncovers something essential about our enduring desire for wildness in a world where it is rapidly vanishing.” —James Prosek, artist and author of Trout: An Illustarted History “Gina Rae La Cerva is a modern-day hunter-gatherer, scouring the planet to bring us delicious stories and lessons about our world. Her writing is original and thought-provoking, and even though it's not always palatable how we've transformed our native flora and fauna, her adventurous storytelling is endlessly satisfying.” —Daniel Stone, author of The Food Explorer “Gina Rae La Cerva’s engrossing book celebrates wild-harvested food but also mourns it, showing how plentiful staples have dwindled time and again to overexploited luxuries. Mixing memoir, travelogue, and environmental history, Feasting Wild is a lyrical and lucid exploration of hunger and fulfillment, richly detailed and beautifully told.” —Thor Hanson, author of Buzz and The Triumph of Seeds “[La Cerva's] writing pulls together personal narrative and research in a way that is not only accessible, but intensely revealing, taking us back through time, across oceans and land, and impressing upon us all that is lost when we forgo or commodify wildness.” —Madison Cruz, Literati Bookstore, Ann Arbor, MI
£17.09
ACC Art Books Sofreh: The Art of Persian Celebration
Book Synopsis'Sofreh' is Persian for 'spread' - referring to the colorful arrangements of flowers, condiments and objects of spiritual or cultural importance that are displayed at Persian ceremonies. As the title promises, this book is a visual feast. Flush with lavish historical illustrations and contemporary photography, it documents Persian marriage and New Year celebrations in rich detail. Sofreh pays homage to ancient traditions, discussing the symbiosis of symbolism and culture. Despite their ancestral roots, the featured ceremonies are infused with life and creativity. Modern fabrics are welcomed alongside refined antique textiles, creative floral designs, unconventional pieces of furniture, and unexpected objects. References to Persian poetry, literature, art and folklore stimulate the imagination, and the text is illuminated with exquisitely detailed extracts from old manuscripts, antique woven textiles and embroideries. Each volume centers around a series of original and at times highly elaborate sofreh creations. Together they comprise an extensive project, involving research into Persian ceremonies and sofreh history by an eminent scholar, and the design and creation of stunning compositions. Book One is about the Persian New Year (Nowruz), which is celebrated on the first day of Spring. Book Two explores Persian marriage and wedding customs, and the elaborate settings for marriage ceremonies (Aqd). These two lavishly illustrated volumes which make an enduring gift are devoted to showcasing sofreh compositions in all of their glory. Never before have the splendor and beauty of the sofreh been presented in such an intricate and novel fashion.
£56.25
Lit Verlag On Mars and Venus: Strategic Culture as an
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£15.68
Lit Verlag Marchenstrassen - Lebenswelten: Zur Kulturellen
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£23.40
Arnoldsche Imagining the Nagas: Pictorial Ethnography of
Book SynopsisWhen the British colonial power in the nineteenth century extended its influence to the mountainous borderland between India and Burma, it brought about an era of fundamental cultural changes for the native Naga tribes. The guns of the conquerors were followed by the dogmas of the missionaries, as well as the drawing pens and cameras of the documentarians. Their pictures and artifacts soon found their way onto the tables of parlors and into Europe's museums. The spectacular material culture with its individualistic aesthetics, along with the fascination of headhunting, soon led to the Naga being stylized as the epitome of 'noble savages'. The pictorial documentation of the tribe reached its peak in the 1930s, following the research expeditions by the Austrian ethnologist Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf and his German colleague Hans-Eberhard Kauffmann. The photographic heritage of Kauffmann, believed to be lost and then rediscovered by the author, is the focus of this publication. It attempts, by means of a detailed pictorial ethnography, to reconstruct the aesthetic and cultural reality of the Nagas in the 1930s, through the ethnographer's lens. This is contextualized by Furer-Haimendorf 's photographs, alongside other sources. A detailed introduction presents the working practices and analyzes the biographies of the two ethnographers and their political and ideological entanglements.
£48.00
Low Price Publications Sikhs: An Ethnology
Book SynopsisA detailed study of Sikh power's rise, battles against Mughals, and their role in British and Indian armies post-Mutiny. Valuable insights for historians and defense personnel. Includes rites of initiation into Sikhism.
£9.93
BAI NV Ancestors & Rituals
Book SynopsisFrom Sumatra to Java, from the Moluccas to Papua, across the whole of Indonesia, ancestors have played and still play a leading role. The cults and representations are evidence of an enormous diversity, power and poetry. This unique introduction to Indonesia starts from a cultural heritage perspective, but also poses topical questions about the place of traditions and rituals in contemporary society. Never before exhibited archaeological and ethnographic treasures are brought together with unique footage and interviews. In collaboration with the National Museum in Jakarta and numerous collections from all four corners of the archipelago.
£32.62
University of Utah Press,U.S. Florentine Codex: Book 8 Volume 8: A General
Book SynopsisTwo of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people. The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century. Book Eight lists the rulers of Tenochtitlan from the first, Acamapichtli, to the sixteenth, Don Cristobal Cecepatic. It also documents the rulers of the ancient Aztec cities of Tlatillco, Texcoco, and Uexotla. Several chapters are devoted to describing the various articles of clothing that the rulers and noblemen wore and the foods they ate for differing ceremonies and activities.
£24.71
Penguin Books Ltd Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia
Book Synopsis'A characteristically radical re-reading of history that places the social and political experiments of pirates at the heart of the European Enlightenment. A brilliant companion volume to the best-selling Dawn of Everything' Amitav GhoshThe Enlightenment did not begin in Europe. Its true origins lie thousands of miles away on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when it was home to several thousand pirates. This was the Golden Age of Piracy - but it was also, argues anthropologist David Graeber, a brief window of radical democracy, as the pirate settlers attempted to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on land.In this jewel of a book, Graeber offers a way to 'decolonize the Enlightenment', demonstrating how this mixed community experimented with an alternative vision of human freedom, far from that being formulated in the salons and coffee houses of Europe. Its actors were Malagasy women, philosopher kings and escaped slaves, exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice by Western revolutionary regimes a century later.Pirate Enlightenment playfully dismantles the central myths of the Enlightenment. In their place comes a story about the magic, sea battles, purloined princesses, manhunts, make-believe kingdoms, fraudulent ambassadors, spies, jewel thieves, poisoners and devil worship that lie at the origins of modern freedom.Trade ReviewChatty, punky, anti-everything catnip... it is good fun. It's about pirates, after all. * Sunday Times *Engaging ... the chief pleasure of Graeber's writing is not that one always agrees with his arguments about the past. It is rather that, through a series of provocative thought experiments, he repeatedly forces us to reconsider our own ways of living in the present. Whatever happened in 18th-century Madagascar, Pirate Enlightenment implies, we could surely all do with a bit more free-thinking and egalitarianism in our own social, sexual and political arrangements. -- Fara Dabhoiwala * The Guardian *Open and imaginative... Graeber is writing in a hybrid genre of poetic history, in this sense, but he is also reminding us why such hybridisation is good for us. * New Statesman *A characteristically radical re-reading of history that places the social and political experiments of pirates at the heart of the European Enlightenment. A brilliant companion volume to the best-selling Dawn of Everything. -- Amitav GhoshFeisty, heroic ... a highly original thinker and a wonderful writer. -- Peter Frankopan * New York Times *A genius... blazingly original, stunningly wide-ranging, impossibly well read. * The Atlantic *A thinker who revolutionises the way we see the world and helps us reimagine the things we once took for granted. * New Statesman *PRAISE FOR THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING: Iconoclastic and irreverent ... an exhilarating read. -- David Priestland * The Guardian *Pacey and potentially revolutionary ... This is more than an argument about the past, it is about the human condition in the present. -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *Blazing with iconoclastic rebuttals to conventional wisdom. Full of fresh thinking, it's a pleasure to read and offers a bracing challenge on every page. -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * BBC History *This is not a book. This is an intellectual feast. -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
£10.44
ATF Press The Politics of Identity: Who Counts as
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£24.29
KIT Publishers Dealing with the Dutch: The Cultural Context of
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£16.79
The University of Chicago Press The Soul of Mbira
Book SynopsisA scholarly portrayal of Shona musicians and the African Musical tradition. l Berliner provides the complete cultural context for the music and an intimate, precise account of the meaning of the instrument and its music.
£20.00
The University of Chicago Press NonSovereign Futures French Caribbean Politics in
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£22.80
The University of Chicago Press Siege of the Spirits
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£24.70
The University of Chicago Press Belonging in an Adopted World
Book SynopsisSince the early 1990s, transnational adoptions have increased at an astonishing rate, not only in the United States, but worldwide. This title explores the consequences and implications of this unprecedented movement of children, usually from poor nations to the affluent West.Trade Review"Brilliantly nuanced and beautifully written, Belonging in an Adopted World is ethnographically stunning. Barbara Yngvesson is an eloquent narrator, and her analysis will be clear and accessible to anyone ready to think afresh about citizenship and family life." - Carol Greenhouse, Princeton University"
£22.80
Columbia University Press Regimes of Historicity
Book SynopsisA classical historian confronts our crises of time, radically calling into question our relations to the past, present, and future.Trade ReviewSince his classic Mirror of Herodotus, Francois Hartog has emerged as the most significant theorist of history and chronicler of our changing relationship to our own past that France has produced. In this series of meditative chapters, he takes us from the Greeks to the present once more, emphasizing how the theory of history must move from diagnosing the modern gap between expectation and experience to confronting the exigency of historical crisis today. Hartog's reflections are valuable for all humanists. -- Samuel Moyn, Columbia University In a book that should be required reading for anyone interested in history's role in contemporary society, Francois Hartog shows how unexamined assumptions about the past shape our understandings of ourselves and our place in history. -- Lynn Hunt, University of California, Los Angeles Francois Hartog's pioneering work on the concept of 'regimes of historicity' makes this book a must for scholars in both the social sciences and the humanities. A distinguished classical historian, Hartog uses specific, well-chosen examples to explain how understanding regimes of historicity will allow us to better understand the conditions of possibility for producing histories and, more generally, our own relationship to time. -- Robert Morrissey, University of Chicago Francois Hartog is perhaps the most important historian of historiography today... Regimes of Historicity should be required reading for anyone interested in the past, present, and future writing of history. American Historical Review Regimes of Historicity should be required reading for anyone interested in the past, present, and future writing of history. Time's BooksTable of ContentsPresentism: Stopgap or New State? Introduction: Orders of Time and Regimes of Historicity Orders of Time 1 1. Making History: Sahlins's Islands 2. From Odysseus's Tears to Augustine's Meditations 3. Chateaubriand, Between Old and New Regimes of Historicity Orders of Time 2 4. Memory, History, and the Present 5. Heritage and the Present Our Doubly Indebted Present: The Reign of Presentism Notes Index
£25.50
Columbia University Press Dispossession and the Environment Rhetoric and
Book SynopsisPaige West's searing study of Papua New Guinea reveals how a range of actors produce and reinforce inequalities in today's globalized world. She shows how racist rhetorics of representation underlie all uneven patterns of development and seeks a more robust understanding of the ideological work that capital requires for constant regeneration.Trade ReviewThis is a brilliant work with theoretical force and wide-ranging epistemological and ethical implications. Rigorously researched and historically grounded, West documents how representational strategies - discursive, semiotic, and visual - in relation to Papua New Guinea underpin the enduring boundary between the nature/culture divide, which produces destructive material effects while entrenching white supremacy and capitalism in the globalized world of the twenty-first century. Rich, lucid, and incisive, Dispossession and the Environment is a must-read for scholars in anthropology, environmental studies, Pacific studies, and beyond. -- J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of anthropology and American studies, Wesleyan University Provocative and absorbing, Dispossession and the Environment clarifies the roles that ideologies of 'nature' and 'culture' play in the production of global inequalities. West demonstrates how indigenous philosophy and political ecology can offer new grounds for theorizing worlds remade by dispossession. A much-needed intervention in current debates over ontology and epistemology, this is decolonial anthropology at its best. -- Ty P. Kawika Tengan, author of Native Men Remade: Gender and Nation in Contemporary Hawai'i How do we ensure that anthropology does not set the stage for dispossession? This brilliant, powerful collection of essays by Paige West demonstrates the profoundly material effects of disabling colonial and anthropological representations of Melanesia. Papua New Guinean lives and environments matter, and hardly just for the benefit of capitalists, tourists, conservationists, and social scientists. -- Katerina Teaiwa, author of Consuming Ocean Island: Stories of People and Phosphate from Banaba In this intellectually groundbreaking study of uneven development, Paige West demonstrates how non-material representations of people and place in Papua New Guinea have profound material consequences. Her masterful analysis examines accumulation by dispossession through representational strategies that allow surfers, development experts, and other expatriates to dispossess Papua New Guineans of both their culture and their environment. A unique and powerful contribution to political ecology and environmental studies. -- Jerry Jacka, author of Alchemy in the Rain Forest: Politics, Ecology, and Resilience in a New Guinea Mining Area In this wide-ranging, passionately argued and beautifully written book, West examines the discursive, semiotic and visual strategies that work to dispossess Papua New Guineans of their land, livelihoods and sovereignty. Through lively case studies, she demonstrates not only the depth of ethnographic insight that only results from long-term engagement with communities, but also makes important connections between diverse sets of theory. This book is an important reminder of what anthropology can, and should, be. -- Joshua A. Bell, curator of globalization, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution Drawing from the author's two decades of research experience in Papua New Guinea, this engaging, lively, and lucid manuscript discusses how structural inequalities are produced, lived, and reinforced in today's globalized world. -- Molly Doane, author of Stealing Shining Rivers: Agrarian Conflict, Market Logic, and Conservation in a Mexican ForestTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Map of the Island of New Guinea Introduction 1. "Such a Site for Play, This Edge": Tourism and Modernist Fantasy 2. "We Are Here to Build Your Capacity": Development as a Vehicle for Accumulation and Dispossession 3. Discovering the Already Known: Tree Kangaroos, Explorer Imaginings, and Indigenous Articulations 4. Indigenous Theories of Accumulation, Dispossession, Possession, and Sovereignty Afterword. Birdsongs: In Memory of Neil Smith (1954-2012) Notes Bibliography Index
£23.80
Columbia University Press Secular Translations
Book SynopsisIn Secular Translations, anthropologist Talal Asad reflects on his lifelong engagement with secularism and its contradictions. He draws out the ambiguities in our concepts of the religious and the secular through a rich consideration of translatability and untranslatability.Trade ReviewWell worth reading...an excellent instance of the value of anthropological concepts for the study of religion and the social importance of theology. -- Timothy Jenkins, Cambridge University * Modern Theology *Asad remains essential reading. * Muslim World Book Review *This is an immensely rich text, undoubtedly Asad’s tour de force. * Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Secular Equality and Religious Language2. Translation and the Sensible Body3. Masks, Security, and the Language of NumbersEpilogueNotesIndex
£19.80
University of Illinois Press Ritual Medical Lore of Sephardic Women
Book SynopsisFocusing on interviews with elders of the Sephardic communities of the former Ottoman Empire, this title illuminates a complex of preventive and curative rituals conducted by women at home - rituals that ensured the well-being of the community and functioned as a counterpart to the public rites conducted by men in the synagogues.Trade Review"[Lévy and Zumwalt] bring a wide perspective to their study." -- Choice"This is an important study on the role of women in the life of the community, the family, and individuals, and on their involvement in ensuring the physical and spiritual health of their acquaintances. ... This is an important contribution to the study of Jewish women, the role of women in the well-being of the community, folk medicine, and folklore." -- Rachel Simon, Religious Studies Review"This well-written book makes a significant contribution to the study of the folklore of the Levantine Sephardim. The authors have a unique vantage point on a Sephardic world that is fast vanishing, if not vanished. They will be among the last scholars to do significant fieldwork in this area, and their testimony will be a useful mine for scholars for many years to come."--David Martin Gitlitz, author of Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of Crypto-Jew
£31.50
Indiana University Press Jewish Poland Revisited Heritage Tourism in
Book SynopsisDemonstrates that Jews and Poles use spaces, institutions, interpersonal exchanges, and cultural representations to make sense of their historical inheritancesTrade ReviewIn Jewish Poland Revisited, [Lehrer] excavates forgotten history and discusses surprising recent developments—including the large number of Jewish tourists coming to Poland and the growing interest among non-Jewish Poles in Jews and Judaism. . . She boldly asserts that 'Poland—the epicenter of the destruction of European Jewry—is now a key site for the regeneration, rearticulation, and redefinition not only of a local Jewish community, but of inventive, hybrid ideas of post-Holocaust Jewishness itself.' 4/24/15 * Jewish Book Council *Lehrer's monograph is a refreshing approach to the subject of Jewish Poland. As a study in tourism and heritage, the book provides an interesting addition to a growing field. * Slavic Review *Jewish Poland Revisited is a valuable book for anyone headed to Poland-or perhaps to any 'heritage tourism' location. And because it raises profound questions about Jewish engagement with other ethnicities, I suspect it will provoke reflection even in those with no interest in leaving home.Fall 2015 * Jewish Book World *Erica Lehrer gives a detailed, extensive, and fascinating account of the making, unmaking, and remaking of Poland's Jewish heritage. * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *Well researched and clearly written, Lehrer's book is a personal exploration and a learned analysis of a new and fascinating chapter in Polish Jewish history and society, and readers will gain a much deeper appreciation for recent developments in Poland as well as the country's ongoing role in contemporary Jewish culture and memory in North America, Israel, and other locales. . . . Indeed, this is one of those rare academic books that successfully fulfills the needs of both the popular and the academic communities. * Religious Studies Review *Lehrer offers a fresh and delightful portrait of Jewish renewal in Poland. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice *The unquiet nature of Poland as a Jewish heritage place is changing rapidly, and Lehrer's Jewish Poland Revisited is an up-to-date and detailed guide to the shifting landscape. * Canadian Jewish News *[T]he main asset of Lehrer's work is its huge potential and argumentative power to influence and change the prevailing . . . negative attitudes towards Poland among many people in the international Jewish community. Thanks to her work perhaps more Jews will no longer conceive Poland only as the site of Holocaust and as a widely antisemitic country, but rather as a place full of hope and future for the recognition of Polish Jewish culture, history and heritage and for the Jewish communities here. * New Eastern Europe *Jewish Poland Revisited is appropriate for a wide readership from specialists in cultural anthropology, graduate students, and college students to well educated general audiences. * American Ethnologist *Recommended. . . * AJL Reviews *[O]ne of the most nuanced and enthralling studies on Jewish space, heritage tourism, and the role that memory and identity play in the complex post-Holocaust and post-Communist Polish society. . . Jewish Poland Revisited is unequivocally an obligatory reading . . .April 2015 * H-Poland *The result of Lehrer's twenty years of intense engagement with Kazimierz is a tour-de-force volume as important for Jewish studies as it is for tourism studies and heritage studies. * H-SAE *Often the history of the Jews in Poland and Polish history are written as two distinct narratives. On the one hand, this separation is necessary to accommodate the different experiences and trajectories of the historical actors. On the other, the split often provides a disjointed view of Polish-Jewish relations and lived experiences in Poland. Lehrer's book is an important point of intersection between these narratives and it highlights the problem of a Polish history lacking Jews, and the important role of Jews in Polish culture and vice versa. * Holocaust and Genocide Studies *Jewish Poland Revisited is an important and insightful study, one that will hopefully lead to a wider range of new works devoted to Polish-Jewish relations and heritage in Cracow and beyond. * Center for Interdisciplinary Studies *This book is of interest to a wider readership than might be suggested by its title. Not only does the work provide a detailed ethnographic monograph about Jewish heritage and tourism in Kazimierz in Kracow, Poland, but it also analyses the challenges of ethnographic research and heritage interpretation more generally. The context of Kracow, Auschwitz and Jewish heritage in Poland is, of course, by no means unfamiliar to anyone interested in the complexities of heritage interpretation in a 'dissonant' environment. However, Erica Lehrer provides many thought-provoking and (for some) controversial alternative narratives to the construction of Jewish culture, heritage and identities post-Holocaust. * Journal of Heritage Tourism *Table of ContentsPrologue: Scene of ArrivalIntroduction: Poles and Jews: Significant Others1. Making Sense of Place: History, Mythology, Authenticity2. The Mission: Mass Jewish Holocaust Pilgrimage3. The Quest: Scratching the Heart4. Shabbos Goyim: Polish Stewards of Jewish Spaces5. Traveling Tschotschkes and "Post-Jewish" Culture6. Jewish like an Adjective: Expanding the Collective SelfConclusion: Towards a Polish-Jewish milieu de mémoire
£19.79
Indiana University Press When the World Becomes Female Guises of a South
Book SynopsisArgues that within the festival of the goddess Gangamma ultimate reality is imagined as femaleTrade ReviewWhen the World Becomes Female is a great addition to the academic literature on South Asian religious, ritual, devotional, and goddess traditions. It is accessible enough for use in undergraduate courses on the same or as an example of ethnographic methodology. It is always in-depth enough for graduate courses and as a resource for scholars' and universities' libraries. * newbooks.asia *Joyce B. Flueckiger's new book When the World Becomes Female . . . is a rich and colorful analysis of the goddess Gangamma's festival and her devotees.7/3/15 * New Books in South Asian Studies *[Joyce Flueckiger addresses] directly questions of the relationships between a goddess and her devotees, and the ways that those devotees play with gender.April 2015 * H-Asia *This is a carefully crafted ethnography on the South Indian festival of the village goddess Gangamma in the pilgrimage town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. . . . Recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroductionPart 1. Imaginative Worlds of Gangamma 1. An Aesthetics of Excess 2. Guising, Transformation, Recognition, and Possibility 3. Narratives of Excess and Access 4. Female-Narrated Possibilities of Relationship 5. Gangamma as Ganga River GoddessPart 2. Those Who Bear the Goddess 6. Wandering Goddess, Village Daughter: Avilala Reddys 7. Temple and Vesham Mirasi: The Kaikalas of Tirupati 8. The Goddess Served and Lost: Tattayagunta Mudaliars 9. Exchanging Talis with the Goddess: Protection and Freedom to Move 10. "Crazy for the Goddess": A Consuming RelationshipConclusion: Possibilities of a World Become FemaleGlossaryNotesReferencesIndex
£18.89
Indiana University Press Palestinian Music and Song
Book SynopsisExamines the many ways in which music has been a force of representation, nation building, and social action.Trade ReviewThis monumental contribution to Palestinian studies bridges the work of practitioners and scholars to make available rare oral histories, offer insights onto contemporary musical life, and redress issues of indigeneity and cultural resistance. Impressive in its scope and depth, the anthology's organizational structure enlivens debates between scholars while providing an historical apparatus for better understanding conditions of postcoloniality. It is an indispensable resource for those interested in Middle Eastern folklore, music, history, and politics. * Journal of Folklore Research *Overall, this book is a highly worthwhile read. With its variety of formats, it is appropriate for public libraries as well as academic ones. * Fontes Artis Musicae *Table of ContentsIntroduction Palestinian Music: Surviving in Song Moslih KanaanehPart 1: Background1. Palestinian Song, European Revelation, and Mission Rachel Beckles Willson2. A Musical Catastrophe: the direct impact of the Nakba on Palestinian musicians and musical life Nader Jalal and Issa Boulos interviewed by Heather Bursheh3. Negotiating the Elements: Palestinian Freedom Songs from 1967 to 1987 Issa BoulosPart 2: Identity4. Transgressing Borders with Palestinian Hip Hop Janne Louise Andersen5. Performing Self: Between Tradition and Modernity in the West Bank Sylvia Alajaji6. Realities for a Singer in Palestine Reem Talhami interviewed by Heather Bursheh7. Identity, Diaspora and Resistance in Palestinian Hip Hop Randa SafiehPart 3: Resistance8. Performative Politics: Folklore and Popular Resistance during the First Palestinian Intifada David A. McDonald9. Hamas' Musical Resistance Practices: Perceptions, Production, and Usage Michael Schulz and Carin Berg10. Palestinian Music: Between Artistry and Political Resistance Stig-Magnus Thorsén11. The Ghosts of Resistance: Dispatches from Palestinian Art and Music Yara El-Ghadban and Kiven Strohm
£18.89
Indiana University Press An Ethnography of Hunger
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe book is ethnographically rich and presents us with new ways of thinking about development practices and environmental politics broadly defined. More importantly, An Ethnography of Hunger makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationship between power, politics and the environment. The book, for many years to come, will provoke intellectual debate about the place of politics and the environment in Tanzania, Africa, and beyond. * Political and Legal Anthrology Review *Recommended. * Choice *Phillips's nuanced analysis of the lived experience of hunger, its embeddedness in social relationships, and its impact on political subjectivity are truly original and set this book apart from other anthropological studies of hunger, subsistence farming, or political subjectivity. -- Jennie E. Gurnet - Georgia State University * African Studies Review *Table of ContentsPreface AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Subsistence CitizenshipPART I: The Frames of Subsistence in Singida: Cosmology, Ethnography, HistoryChapter 1 Hunger in Relief: Village Life and Livelihood Chapter 2 The Unpredictable Grace of the Sun: Cosmology, Conquest, and the Politics of SubsistencePART II: The Power of the Poor on the Threshold of SubsistenceChapter 3 We Shall Meet at the Pot of Ugali: Sociality, Differentiation, and Diversion in the Distribution of FoodChapter 4 Crying, Denying, and Surviving Rural HungerPART III: Subsistence CitizenshipChapter 5 Subsistence versus DevelopmentChapter 6 Patronage, Rights, and the Idioms of Rural Citizenship Conclusion: The Seasons of Subsistence and CitizenshipNotesBibliographyIndex
£19.79
Indiana University Press Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture
Book SynopsisA practical and comprehensive appraisal of the value of philosophy in today's technological culture.Trade ReviewHickman offers a refinement of his earlier John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (CH, Jun'90), with nine essays inviting consideration of some of the pivotal problems and prospects of our technological culture. The essays are concerned with the paradoxical fact that the techniques and technologies ostensibly developed as means of control are now viewed by many individuals as spinning out of control, or at the very least, as operating beyond their personal control. The author argues that not only is technology as culture the legitimate concern of philosophers, but that they can be cultural critics and reformers in the process. One of the most interesting chapters is devoted to ways in which a techno-scientific education might serve to confront antiscientific elements in modern society, including religious fundamentalism (Islamic as well as Christian) and the splintering effects of contemporary specialism. The author contrasts Dewey's own critique of technological culture with those of Jacques Ellul and Martin Heidegger. In the closing chapter he also provides his own program for the effective reform of technological culture. He puts philosophy to work so that productive pragmatism may transform technocracy to improve the present and enhance the potential for future growth of individuals and communities alike. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals; two—year technical program students.November 2001 -- J. W. Dauben * CUNY Herbert H. Lehman College *Table of ContentsPreliminary Table of Contents: AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Tuning Up Technology2. Technology and Community Life3. Productive Pragmatism, Critical Theory, and Agape4. Art, Technoscience, and Social Action5. Technoscience Education for a Life-Long Curriculum6. Literacy, Mediacy, and Technological Determinism7. Populism and the Cult of the Expert8. Hope, Salvation, and Responsibility9. The Next Technological RevolutionNotesBibliographyIndex
£15.19
MIT Press Whole Earth Field Guide The MIT Press
Book SynopsisA source book for American culture in the 1960s and 1970s: “suggested reading” from the Last Whole Earth Catalog, from Thoreau to James Baldwin.The Whole Earth Catalog was a cultural touchstone of the 1960s and 1970s. The iconic cover image of the Earth viewed from space made it one of the most recognizable books on bookstore shelves. Between 1968 and 1971, almost two million copies of its various editions were sold, and not just to commune-dwellers and hippies. Millions of mainstream readers turned to the Whole Earth Catalog for practical advice and intellectual stimulation, finding everything from a review of Buckminster Fuller to recommendations for juicers. This book offers selections from eighty texts from the nearly 1,000 items of “suggested reading” in the Last Whole Earth Catalog.After an introduction that provides background information on the catalog and its founder, Stewart Brand (interesting fact: Brand go
£29.70
University of Washington Press An Ecological History of Modern China
Book SynopsisTrade Review"[An] intellectually adventurous, wide-ranging, and boldly integrative study." * Foreign Affairs *
£25.19
Yale University Press The Long Long Life of Trees
Book SynopsisA lyrical tribute to the diversity of trees, their physical beauty, their special characteristics and uses, and their ever-evolving meanings Since the beginnings of history trees have served humankind in countless useful ways, but our relationship with trees has many dimensions beyond mere practicality. Trees are so entwined with human experience that diverse species have inspired their own stories, myths, songs, poems, paintings, and spiritual meanings. Some have achieved status as religious, cultural, or national symbols. In this beautifully illustrated volume Fiona Stafford offers intimate, detailed explorations of seventeen common trees, from ash and apple to pine, oak, cypress, and willow. The author also pays homage to particular trees, such as the fabled Ankerwyke Yew, under which Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, and the spectacular cherry trees of Washington, D.C. Stafford discusses practical uses of wood past and present, tree diseases and environmental threats, and trees' potential contributions toward slowing global climate change. Brimming with unusual topics and intriguing facts, this book celebrates trees and their long, long lives as our inspiring and beloved natural companions.Trade Review"Everywhere [Stafford's] eye for detail brings the trees to life. . . . The Long, Long Life of Trees is elegant, engaging, impeccably written and packed with interest."—John Carey, Sunday Times"Nature Book of the Year."—Sunday Times"Beautifully produced, and each chapter describes a different species, from the dark yew to the friendly apple. . . . A chapter a day of this calming book will keep panic away."—Margaret Drabble, The Guardian "Books of the Year 2016""To describe a book as enchanting is usually to condescend it. Not this time. Fiona Stafford’s enchanting study is also stoutly built, plainly and stylishly written, admirably achieved as to both artistry and pedagogy, and as gripping as a good thriller, replete with plots and character."—Fred Inglis, Times Higher Education Supplement"A leisurely, lyrical reflection on 17 different species, from apple to yew, with special emphasis on the role that each has played in art and literature, myth and legend, medicine and technology. . . . Readers intrigued by the nexus between the cultural and the arboreal will enjoy her book."—Gerard Helferich, Wall Street Journal"For her book in celebration of trees, Fiona Stafford has done a prodigious amount of research . . . this is a very rich mixture – a great arboreal gallimaufry."—Derwent May, Times Literary Supplement"Fiona Stafford weaves together tales of their place in myth, painting, religion and literature, enlivened with her personal sense of wonder. This is a timely book; our trees face a growing threat from diseases that could leave gaps in our cultural landscape, as well as our woodlands and hedgerows."—Phil Gates, BBC Wildlife"It’s impossible to imagine a better book on the subject than this. It’s written with verve, pace, genuine wit and an inspired eye for the quirky fact or anecdote. Even those readers who don’t think they’re interested in trees will find that they are."— John Harding, Daily Mail"Fiona Stafford makes a welcome and entertaining contribution. She draws on material from fields including folklore, natural science, literature, cultural history, European art, ancient mythology and modern medicine to illuminate such trees central place in western civilisation."—Mark Cocker, Spectator"A lovely thing to have and to hold . . . combines natural with cultural and social history, taking account not only of the biology and ecology of plants, but also our relationship with them, past and present."—Mark Griffiths, Country Life"Instantly enriches your experience of the natural world, overlaying the trees around you in the myth, poetry and hidden meaning. . . . The abundance of information never feels like a deluge, as Stafford leads the reader through it with a light, entertaining and often poetic touch. This is a real treasure of a book."—Lia Leendertz, Gardens Illustrated"In this paean to the arboreal impulse, Fiona Stafford gets under the bark of the terrestrial giants whose natural history is interlaced with our own."—Barbara Kier, Nature"The author’s, ahem, root and branch treatment of trees is destined to be a definitive one. . . . By a copy as holiday reading and your plane’s descent over the Home Counties will offer you a chance to put your new-found knowledge into context."—James Anthony, Evening Standard“A book that would grace any book shelf. It is entertaining and informative for the enthusiastic dendrologist, and the casual reader.”—Colin How, Methodist Recorder“Fiona Stafford manages to combine an encyclopaedic knowledge of trees with an anecdotal style to create what all nature writers hope to achieve: something highly readable and informative.”—Simon Garnham, Shooting Times & Country Magazine"The Long, Long Life of Trees is a combination of personal commentary on Fiona Stafford’s love and appreciation of trees, coupled with a wealth of well-researched and fascinating examples of how trees have featured in history, art, commerce, culture and folklore. The book really helps to underline the importance of trees – past and present – and their continuing contribution as a force for good despite the many competing forces pitched against them over the centuries."—The Woodland Trust“A book that would grace any book shelf. It is entertaining and informative for the enthusiastic dendrologist, and the casual reader.”—Colin How, Methodist Recorder -- Colin How * Methodist Recorder *
£11.39
Little, Brown & Company Blueprint
Book SynopsisDrawing on advances in social science, evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience and network science, Blueprint shows how and why evolution has placed us on a humane path -- and how we are united by our common humanity. For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society. In Blueprint, Nicholas A. Christakis introduces the compelling idea that our genes affect not only our bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which we make societies, ones that are surprisingly similar worldwide. With many vivid examples -- including diverse historical and contemporary cultures, communities formed in the wake of shipwrecks, commune dwellers seeking utopia, online groups thrown together by design or involving artificially intelligent bots and even the tender and complex social arrangements of elephants and dolphins that so resemble our own - Christakis shows that, despite a human history replete with violence, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness. In a world of increasing political and economic polarisation, it''s tempting to ignore the positive role of our evolutionary past. But by exploring the ancient roots of goodness in civilisation, Blueprint shows that our genes have shaped societies for our welfare and that, in a feedback loop stretching back many thousands of years, societies have shaped and are still shaping, our genes today.
£8.54
Little, Brown Book Group Consider The Lobster And Other Essays Essays and
Book SynopsisDo lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humour? What is John Updike''s deal anyway? And who won the Adult Video News'' Female Performer of the Year Award the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in his new book of hilarious non-fiction. For this collection, David Foster Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talkshow featuring a host with an unnatural penchant for clothing that only looks good on the radio. In what is sure to be a much-talked-about exploration of distinctly modern subjects, one of the sharpest minds of oTrade ReviewHe is eloquent, scathing, precise and very funny * INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY *Wallace's voice comes zinging off the page, reinforcing the school of thought that says he's some type of maybe-genius doing something they haven't invented a word for yet * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything * NEW YORK TIMES *Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight * James Woods, GUARDIAN *
£10.44
Dover Publications Inc. George Frazer J Golden Bough
Book SynopsisThis 1890 study offers a monumental exploration of the cults, rites, and myths of antiquity and their parallels with those of early Christianity. Abridged by the author from his 12-volume work.
£10.44
University of California Press No One Cries for the Dead Tamil Dirges Rowdy
Book SynopsisTrade Review"In this book, isabelle Clark-Deces gives us a clear-eyed view of the bond between the state of untouchability in India, and the pain of death and irretrievable loss. This is not a distanced work: the reader is always right there with the people Clark-Deces writes about; one can see them and hear their voices as one reads. The author also achieves some powerful theoretical insights that go beyond the words and other communicative acts of her informants." - Margaret Trawick, Professor of Social Anthropology, Massey University, New Zealand"Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. A Different Grief 2. Songs of Experience 3. Why Should We Cry? 4. Life as a Record of Failure 5. Between Performance and Experience Appendix A: Four Abridged Versions of the Virajampuhan Story Appendix B: The Story of Virajampuhan in Tamil Glossary References
£25.50
University of California Press Society of the Dead
Book SynopsisExplores Palo, a Kongo-inspired 'society of affliction' that is poorly understood at the margins of Cuban popular religion. This title draws upon the critiques of Western metaphysics, revealing what this little known practice can tell us about sensation, transformation, and redemption in the Black Atlantic.Trade Review"[Ochea's] work is unlikely to be superseded... Highly recommended." -- S. D. Glazier ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part One. The Dead 1. Isidra 2. Kalunga, the Ambient Dead 3. Little Corners 4. Responsive Dead Part Two. Palo Society 5. Emilio O'Farril 6. Teodoro 7. Palo Society 8. Decay 9. A Feast Awry 10. Virtudes Part Three. Prendas-Ngangas-Enquisos 11. Lucero Mundo 12. The Cauldron 13. Reckoning with the Dead 14. Nfumbe 15. Insinuation and Artifice Part Four. Palo Craft 16. Struggle Is Praise 17. Cristianas 18. Judias 19. Tormenta Ndoki 20. Storms of Lent Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
£21.25
University of California Press Dreams That Matter
Book SynopsisExplores the social and material life of dreams in contemporary Cairo. This title guides the reader through landscapes of the imagination that feature Muslim dream interpreters who draw on Freud, reformists who dismiss various forms of divination as superstition, and ordinary believers who speak of moving encounters with the Prophet Muhammad.Trade Review"Engaging, theoretically sophisticated and ethnographically rich." -- Anthony Shenoda Social Anthropology "[This] exploration of Egyptian dream life is a unique, if not compelling, one." BidounTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments On Transliterations and Translations Prelude Introduction: Studying Dreams in Undreamy Times 1. Dream Trouble 2. Thresholds of Interpretation 3. Seeing the (In)visible 4. Poetry and Prophecy 5. The Ethics of the Visitational Dream 6. The Royal Road into the Unknown 7. Virtual Realities, Visionary Realities Afterword: On the Politics of Dreaming Notes Glossary Bibliography Index
£21.25
University of California Press Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Japan
Book SynopsisLooks at Japanese culinary history, delving into the writings of medieval and early modern Japanese chefs. This book traces the development of Japanese cuisine from 1400 to 1868. It shows how medieval 'fantasy food' rituals - where food was revered as symbol rather than consumed - were continued by early modern writers.Trade Review"This volume is a cogent reminder that to truly understand the importance of food in our lives, we must examine not merely its material role, but also its symbolic significance." Choice "There is no English-language research on the subject of early modern Japanese cuisine as extensive or imaginative." -- David Eason/University at Albany, SUNY Social Science Japan JrnlTable of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Japanese Cuisine, a Backward Journey 2. Of Knives and Men: Cutting Ceremonies and Cuisine 3. Ceremonial Banquets 4. The Barbarians' Cookbook 5. Food and Fantasy in Culinary Books 6. Menus for the Imagination 7. Deep Thought Wheat Gluten and Other Fantasy Foods Conclusion: After the Fantasies Appendix: The Southern Barbarians' Cookbook (Nanban ryorisho) Notes Bibliography Index
£56.80
University of California Press Europe and the People Without History
Book SynopsisExplores the historical trajectory of so-called modern globalization. This title challenges the long-held anthropological notion that non-European cultures and people were isolated and static entities before the advent of European colonialism and imperialism.Trade Review"The work of a powerful theoretical intelligence, but one informed by a lived sense of social realities." * Times Literary Supplement *"Wolf's intention is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted their historical accounts of their societies before European intervention. . . . His historical sweep and analytic breadth are astounding, and he gives approximately equal weight to historical 'winners' and 'losers.'" * American Journal of Sociology *"Wolf's empirical knowledge is exceptionally wide. . . . He relies on a skillful selection of phenomena in time and space that are reasonably representative of the totality. . . . The book is very well written and with a profoundly human touch." * Ethnos *"Wolf has created a history of connection rather than one of segregation. . . . This absorbing and stimulating book . . . provides a convincing and, dare I say, new perspective. . . . By emphasizing a common past, Wolf moves away from weary polarities of active 'white' centre and passive 'non- white' periphery and suggests both a more complex and a more informed sense of the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world." * European Update *"In this big and important book, Eric Wolf begins and ends with the assertion that anthropology must pay more attention to history. . . . It is with pleasure, then, that one reads a critical analysis that rejects pseudo- historical oppositions and explores with such care the historical processes by which primitive and peasant pasts have become a fundamentally altered primitive, peasant, and proletarian present." * Dialectical Anthropology *"Wolf's intention is to explain the development and nature of the chains of cause and consequence which linked populations in the post-1400 world. The outcome is a tightly structured and elegant book." * Oceania *Table of ContentsForeword to the 2010 Edition Preface (1997) Preface (1982) Part One Connections 1 Introduction 2 The World in 1400 3 Modes of Production 4 Europe, Prelude to Expansion Part Two In Search of Wealth 5 Iberians in America 6 The Fur Trade 7 The Slave Trade 8 Trade and Conquest in the Orient Part Three Capitalism 9 Industrial Revolution 10 Crisis and Differentiation in Capitalism 11 The Movement of Commodities 12 The New Laborers Afterword Bibliographic Notes Bibliography Index
£25.50
University of California Press Body Counts
Book SynopsisExamines how the Vietnam War has continued to serve as a stage for the shoring up of American imperialist adventure and for the (re)production of American and Vietnamese American identities.Trade Review"An important addition to the transnational history of the Vietnam War, Cold War global history, and the history of Asian migration to the United States... An Innovative work." -- Heonik Kwon American Journal of Sociology (AJS)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Critical Refuge(e) Studies 2. Militarized Refuge(es) 3. Refugee Camps and the Politics of Living 4. The "Good Warriors" and the "Good Refugee" 5. Refugee Remembering--and Remembrance 6. Refugee Postmemories: The "Generation After" 7. "The Endings That Are Not Over" Notes References Index
£21.25
University of California Press Paradoxes of Green
Book SynopsisA multidisciplinary study of green and its significance from multiple perspectives: aesthetic, architectural, environmental, political, and social. It is centered on the Kingdom of Bahrain, where green has a long and deep history of appearing cooling, productive, and prosperous-a radical contrast to the hot and hostile desert.Trade Review"Doherty is as comfortable reflecting on the aesthetic aspects of colour as he is describing the ecological implications of property development... the portrait Doherty paints is of a fascinating, quickly changing, and - yes - paradoxical place." Environment and Urbanization "Beautifully written." Landscape Architecture MagazineTable of ContentsNotes on Transliteration and Translation Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Two Seas, Many Greens 1. Green Scenery 2. The Blueness of Green 3. How Green Can Become Red 4. The Memory of Date Palm Green 5. The Struggle for the Manama Greenbelt 6. The Promise of Beige 7. Brightening Green 8. The Whiteness of Green Notes Glossary List of Named Participants Bibliography Index
£21.25
University of California Press All in Your Head
Book SynopsisAlthough pain is a universal human experience, many view the pain of others as private, resistant to language, and, therefore, essentially unknowable. This book offers a perspective that considers how pain may be configured, managed, explained, and even experienced in deeply relational ways.Trade Review"Buchbinder's ethnography not only contributes substantially to our understanding of the social uses of explanations, it also exposes how the cultural meaning of these explanations depends on the language that is used and the social and cultural context in which it is delivered." SomatosphereTable of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Acronyms and Initialisms Transcription Conventions Introduction 1. The Bottom of the Funnel 2. The Smart Clinic 3. Sticky Brains 4. Treating the Family 5. Locating Pain in Societal Stress Conclusion Notes References Index
£25.50
Neubauer Collegium Apsaalooke Women and Warriors
Book Synopsis
£34.20
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Anthropology of Economy
Book SynopsisDrawing from the work of anthropologists, as well as that of economists, sociologists, historians, geographers, feminists, and post-Marxists, this book presents an anthropological approach to economy that highlights the centrality of communal processes in the market.Trade Review"This is the first book to propose a cross-cultural model of the economy inspired by anthropology. Gudeman succeeds magnificently in weaving the results of decades of anthropology into an original synthesis." Caroline Humphrey, University of Cambridge "A stimulating rethinking of anthropology's contribution to our understanding of economics. Clear and original, this highly readable book will disturb many people's habits of thought as well as expand & enrich them. In it, Gudeman shows how the economy is embedded in human life and society, and how it builds on community and the commons, as much as on individuality and the market. A signal contribution." Fredrik Barth, University of Oslo and Boston University "Given the clarity of the prose and the accessibility of the ideas, this book would make for an excellent textbook for an economic anthropology class. Indeed, it is hard to think of a textbook that compares. But the book is much more than this. It is clearly intended as a liberating framework within which anthropologists and fieldworkers can rethink economic issues in a much broader way." The Australian Journal of Anthropology "This is an important work, synthesizing a substantial body of anthropological and economic thought into a coherent whole." James G. Carrier, Journal of the Royal Anthropological InstituteTable of ContentsAcknowledgments. 1. Community, Market, and Culture. 2. Economy at the Base. 3. Sharing the Base. 4. The Great Estate: Power, Extraction, and Expansion. 5. Reciprocity and the Gift: Extending the Base. 6. Trade and Profit. 7. Profit on the Small. 8. Realms and Dialectics: Values in Production, Trade, and Use. 9. Political Economy Today. References. Index.
£31.46
Harvard University Press Primeval Kinship How PairBonding Gave Birth to
Book SynopsisChapais shows that our knowledge about kinship and society in nonhuman primates supports, and informs, ideas proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss. He contends that only a few evolutionary steps were required to bridge the gap between the kinship structures of our closest relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—and the human kinship configuration.Trade ReviewBernard Chapais offers a powerful and controversial new account of hominid origins… His book offers us one more scenario of our human trajectory… Chapais‘ thesis urges us to consider very carefully why humans are so different. -- Monique Borgerhoff Mulder * Nature *Chapais has written a bold, new book that promises nothing less than the unveiling of the original, earliest form of human society and an account of how it developed over evolutionary time. The book indeed fulfills this promise, presenting a persuasive, well-argued, logical evolutionary scenario based on empirical data and a sound comparative method… Primeval Kinship presents powerful arguments concerning the origin and evolutionary path of human kinship. It reopens old questions, long abandoned, about the origins of human society, and addresses them with a brilliant synthesis of recent primate data. Chapais has demonstrated that primatology is now positioned to make significant contributions to the study of human kinship. This work will undoubtedly open further debate and inspire further research. It effectively dispels the view that human kinship is a purely cultural construction or that kinship can be understood outside the framework of our primate legacy. -- Linda Stone * Evolutionary Psychology *Primeval Kinship represents a bold effort to integrate two wildly disparate disciplines, primatology and cultural anthropology, to understand long-standing questions about the evolution of human society. With an increasing tendency toward specialization in science, there are few who dare step outside of their comfort zones to attempt broad, wide-ranging syntheses on problems that go to the heart of what it is to be human. In this regard, Chapais should be lauded for his labors and for an extremely stimulating read. His reasoned and careful treatment of the primate data provides considerable food for thought about how and why we have come to be the way we are. -- John C. Mitani * Primates *Primeval Kinship is a treasure chest of comparative research on human and primate social structure, organization, and behavior. This book will reignite and reinvigorate discussions of the evolution of primate and human society. It will be a model from which future social and physical anthropologists, primatologists, and social scientists can build. -- Robert Wald Sussman, Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Sciences, Washington University in St. LouisTable of Contents* Preface 1. The Question of the Origin of Human Society * A Forsaken Quest * The Deep Structure of Human Societies I. Primatologists As Evolutionary Historians 2. Primatology and the Evolution of Human Behavior * The Phylogenetic Decomposition Principle * Reconstructing the Exogamy Configuration 3. The Uterine Kinship Legacy * Primatological Theories and Primate Legacies * Appraising Primate Kinship * The Domain of Uterine Kindred in Primates * How Are Uterine Kin Recognized? * The Origin of Group-wide Kinship Structures 4. From Biological to Cultural Kinship * Beyond Consanguineal Kinship * The "Genealogical Unity of Mankind" * The Bilateral Character of Human Kinship 5. The Incest Avoidance Legacy * Elements of a Primatological Theory of Incest Avoidance * Humankind's Primate Heritage 6. From Behavioral Regularities to Institutionalized Rules * The Anthropologists' Treatment of the Primate Data * The Westermarck Knot * The Morality Problem * Lessons from Comparative Anatomy II. The Exogamy Configuration Decomposed 7. Levi-Strauss and the Deep Structure of Human Society * Reciprocal Exogamy as a Deep Structuring Principle * Reciprocal Exogamy as Archaic * The Convergence beyond the Critiques * Levi-Strauss and the Primate Data 8. Human Society Out of the Evolutionary Vacuum * Leslie White and the Primate Origins of Exogamy * Elman Service and the Primitive Exogamous Band * Robin Fox and the Initial Deconstruction of Exogamy 9. The Building Blocks of Exogamy * Pinpointing the Distinctiveness of Exogamy * Reconstructing Human Society: The Task Ahead * A Once Irreducible System III. The Exogamy Configuration Reconstructed 10. The Ancestral Male Kin Group Hypothesis * The Patrilocal Band Model * Male Philopatry in Apes * The Homology Hypothesis * Updating the Ancestral Male Kin Group Hypothesis * The Gorilla Alternative 11. The Evolutionary History of Pair-Bonding * The "Invariant Core of the Family" * Pair-Bonds as Parental Partnerships * The Pitfall of the Modern Family Reference * A Two-Step Evolutionary Sequence * Monogamy as a Special Case of Polygyny * The Evolutionary History of the Sexual Division of Labor 12 Pair-Bonding and the Reinvention of Kinship * The Fundamental Equation of the Exogamy Configuration * Kinship in the Ancestral Male Kin Group * Fatherhood * The Institutionalized Denial of Paternity * The Development of Agnatic Kinship Structures 13. Biparentality and the Transformation of Siblingships * Chimpanzee Siblingships * Fatherhood and the Evolution of Strong Brotherhoods * Fatherhood and the Brother--Sister Bond * The Added Effect of Shorter Interbirth Intervals 14. Beyond the Local Group: The Rise of the Tribe * Male Pacification as a Prerequisite for the Tribe * Females as Peacemakers: The Consanguinity Route * Females as Peacemakers: The Affinity Route * The Initial Impetus * The Prelinguistic Tribe 15. From Male Philopatry to Residential Diversity * Some Serious Discrepancies * The Emergence of Residential Diversity * Ancestral Patrilocality and Grandmothering 16. Brothers, Sisters, and the Founding Principle of Exogamy * The First Step: Outmarriage * Affinal Brotherhoods and the Origin of Exogamy Rules * From Siblings-in-Law to Cross-Cousins * The "Atom of Kinship" Revisited IV. Unilineal Descent 17. Filiation, Descent, and Ideology * The African Model of Unilineal Descent Groups * The Chestnut within the Model 18. The Primate Origins of Unilineal Descent Groups * Group Membership through Birth * Kinship-Based Segmentation * The Genealogical Boundaries of Exogamy * The Unisexual Transmission of Status * Primitive Corporateness * A Multilevel Structure of Solidarity 19. The Evolutionary History of Human Descent * Female Kin Groups as Precultural Matriclans * The Residential Basis of Proto--Descent Groups * The Latent Patriclan * Matrilineality as a Male Affair 20. Conclusion: Human Society as Contingent * References * Index
£23.76
Harvard University Press The Falling Sky Words of a Yanomami Shaman
Book SynopsisAnthropologist Bruce Albert captures the poetic voice of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon, in this unique reading experience—a coming-of-age story, historical account, and shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest.Trade ReviewA perfectly grounded account of what it is like to live an indigenous life in communion with one’s personal spirits. We are losing worlds upon worlds. -- Louise Erdrich * New York Times Book Review *What does it mean when someone says they can understand the inner lives of animals, trees, or even forests? Bruce Albert and Davi Kopenawa provide a vivid sense of this in The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. The Yanomami of the Amazon, like all the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, have experienced the end of what was once their world. Yet they have survived and somehow succeeded in making sense of a wounded existence. They have a lot to teach us. -- Amitav Ghosh * The Guardian *One of the first and best autobiographical narratives by an indigenous lowland Amazonian…The book is a mix of autobiography, history, personal philosophy, and cultural criticism of whites for their destruction of the world, worship of the material, and lack of spirituality and vitality…The book is not only finely detailed and full of challenging philosophical points, it also contains much humor…Ultimately, it is Kopenawa’s voice that tells us who he is, who his people are, and who we are to them. It is complex and nuanced; I’d go so far as to call The Falling Sky a literary treasure: invaluable as academic reading, but also a must for anyone who wants to understand more of the diverse beauty and wonder of existence. -- Daniel L. Everett * New Scientist *I have just read your manuscript and am enormously impressed by this work of such powerful methodological interest and prodigious documentary richness. It wholly captivates the reader yet is simultaneously so complex, raising so many questions. -- Claude Lévi-Strauss, letter to Bruce Albert, July 10, 2006The words of the Yanomami shamans are powerful: they conjure up another world responsible for this one. Davi Kopenawa proves it for us. Not only do his words give us an unparalleled experience of the life of the Yanomami, but his moving description of their struggle to save the forest and themselves from destruction by the whites reveals the modern tragedy of indigenous peoples in ways we never imagined. -- Marshall Sahlins, University of ChicagoKopenawa provides a fascinating glimpse into his life as well as into Yanomami cultural beliefs and practices, setting his story against the various threats the Yanomami people and their forest have faced since the 1960s...Kopenawa's story is eloquent, engaging, and thought-provoking, exuding heartfelt wisdom. This extraordinary and richly detailed work is an outstanding explication of the Yanomami worldview as well as a plea to all people to respect and preserve the rain forest. -- Elizabeth Salt * Library Journal (starred review) *This engaging text, the autobiography of Yanomami shaman and activist Davi Kopenawa, translated with some prefatory remarks, appendixes, notes, and additional biographical comments by anthropologist Albert, offers a valuable insider perspective on a much-studied Amazonian society, with rich details on myth and religious practices, including shamanic initiation. Albert frames this story with a half-century-long history of exploitation by Westerners, ranging from anthropologists to government officials and developers. Kopenawa’s direct experiences with, and assessment of, his white interlocutors is often charged with a well-justified anger, but through the course of his personal history the need for mutual respect and, where appropriate, collaboration is likewise made evident. The text offers a trenchant critique of the characterization of the Yanomami as humanity’s primordial ‘fierce people,’ highlighting the beauty and virtues of these people while reminding readers of Western cultural and ecological destruction in the Amazon (an exceptionally virulent brand of fierceness). -- C. J. MacKenzie * Choice *Anthropologists and other specialists will find much to relish in this beautifully crafted evocation of Yanomami culture and philosophy. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews taped in native language, it is enriched by almost a hundred pages of footnotes, ethnobiological and geographic glossaries, bibliographical references, detailed indexes and, last but not least, an essay by Bruce Albert on how he wrote the book. While the book resonates with current Western metaphysical angst about finitude, it is written principally as a long shamanic chant that opens up a multitude of interior journeys and provides a new consciousness of the world as a whole… The Yanomami have suffered the effects of deadly epidemics, land dispossession and aggressive missionary evangelism. The resulting break in the flow of knowledge between older and younger generations, a lack of communication between indigenous and nonindigenous interlocutors, and a general loss of connection with the natural environment, are common problems. Despite remarkable political gains in the past thirty years, including the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2007, a health and social crisis is deepening within many indigenous communities. As The Falling Sky makes plain, this crisis is rooted in the symbolic violence exercised by the dominant society, which fails to recognize the value (rather than just the right) of being different and of living in a distinct human collectivity… It is, above all, a splendid story told by an exceptional man, who barely knows how to read and write. That the story was written down by an ethnographer who elected not to adjust his research to the canons of academia adds to its importance. The use of the first-person singular to tell the tale involves a fusion of authorial voices, a sign of mutual recognition and true friendship if ever there was one; it lends a musical quality to the resulting ‘heterobiography.’ Through their sonorous presence, the numerous beings evoked in the shamanic chant usher in the fertility of life as shamans see and feel it. What better way to entice readers away from everyday forgetfulness than to invite them to hear the forest’s vast and timeless symphony? -- Laura Rival * Times Literary Supplement *The Falling Sky is several things. It is the autobiography of Davi Kopenawa, one of Brazil’s most prominent and eloquent indigenous leaders. It is the most vivid and authentic account of shamanistic philosophy I have ever read. It is also a passionate appeal for the rights of indigenous people and a scathing condemnation of the damage wrought by missionaries, gold miners, and white people’s greed. The footnotes alone harbor monographs on Yanomami botany and zoology, mythology, ritual, and history. Most of all, The Falling Sky is an elegy to oral tradition and the power of the spoken word… Kopenawa’s elaboration of shamanic concepts goes beyond ethnography and becomes a new genre of native philosophical inquiry. When an indigenous narrator this articulate produces an original exegesis of his own worldview, anthropology and anthropologists have become almost obsolete… Like his ancestors, whose voices will continue to echo in shamans’ songs after his death, Davi Kopenawa has made sure that his own powerful words will be preserved. -- Glenn Shepard, Jr. * New York Review of Books *
£18.86
Harvard University Press The Caste of Merit
Book SynopsisJust as Americans least disadvantaged by racism are most likely to call their country post‐racial, Indians who have benefited from upper-caste affiliation rush to declare their country a post‐caste meritocracy. Ajantha Subramanian challenges this belief, showing how the ideal of meritocracy serves the reproduction of inequality in Indian education.Trade ReviewThe Caste of Merit is a brilliant contribution to the study of both privilege and meritocracy in contemporary India. It is a powerful intervention in our ongoing debates about diasporic mobility and a genuinely novel treatment of caste as an enduring reality for those struggling to make their way in today’s world of competitive high-tech career trajectories. A distinguished and innovative work, both ethnographically and theoretically. -- Susan Bayly, author of Caste, Society and Politics in IndiaSubramanian’s book is profoundly historical, with a broad focus on the evolution of technical education and social life since the colonial period, as well as the ways caste continues to shape power and hierarchies in contemporary India. A valuable contribution to the growing literature on caste and its reproduction in modern times. -- Surinder S. Jodhka, author of Caste in Contemporary IndiaIndia’s legendary IITs deserve close study by an anthropologist, and Ajantha Subramanian has produced a remarkable work that lets us see behind the curtain. -- Ross Bassett, author of The Technological IndianThe Caste of Merit depicts how upper-caste Indians remade themselves through the ideology of meritocracy. Through her richly detailed ethnography, Ajantha Subramanian sheds new light on the troubling relationship between meritocracy and the reproduction of inequality. A must-read for anyone interested in how meritocracy works in contemporary societies. -- Shamus Khan, author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s SchoolWith a rare combination of originality and intellectual rigor, Subramanian provides a masterful and disturbing analysis of democratic ideals, meritocracy, and the endurance of caste at the paramount higher education institutions of modern India. A timely and impressive achievement. -- Assa Doron, coauthor of Waste of a NationA critique of casteism and growing inequality, this book also doubles as a fascinating history of IIT. Best read in Straussian fashion as a sympathetic story of origins. -- Tyler Cowen * Marginal Revolution *In India—as in the United States and elsewhere—academic advancement rarely occurs without a foundation of family privilege. Focusing on the IIT in Madras, Subramanian shows how upper-caste Tamil graduates have converted their caste privilege into professional prestige and resisted attempts to increase the enrollment of lower-caste groups. -- Andrew J. Nathan * Foreign Affairs *An original, incisive, and scrupulous work of historical anthropology…With a particular focus on IIT Madras and Tamil Nadu, Subramanian explores the psychology and the demographics of India’s new engineers, and the politics of caste, class, and reservations. -- Namit Arora * The Caravan *Provides interesting insights into the colonial history of engineering education and associated racialization of caste, and the making of IITs in postcolonial India as an Brahmin-upper caste space…An excellent book that those interested in sociology of education and meritocracy in India cannot ignore. -- Suryakant Waghmore * Scroll *What does ‘merit’—which is often posed as the ideal criterion for university admissions—really mean in a context where caste pervades public life? Drawing on a rich ethnography focused on the IIT Madras, in the South Indian city of Chennai, Subramanian argues that in ‘merit,’ upper-caste Indians find a liberal and secular rendering of caste…In both India and America, Subramanian argues, a fantasy of having transcended identity politics has allowed for the entrenchment of power. -- Sneha Krishnan * Public Books *Provides interesting insights into the colonial history of engineering education and associated racialization of caste and the making of IITs in postcolonial India as a Brahmin–upper caste space…An excellent book that those interested in sociology of education and meritocracy in India cannot ignore. -- Suryakant Waghmore * Economic and Political Weekly *
£39.91
Random House USA Inc Tastes of Paradise Vintage A Social History of
Book SynopsisFrom the extravagant use of pepper in the Middle Ages to the Protestant bourgeoisie's love of coffee to the reason why fashionable Europeans stopped sniffing tobacco and starting smoking it, Schivelbusch looks at how the appetite for pleasure transformed the social structure of the Old World. Illustrations.
£12.59
Princeton University Press The China Model
Book SynopsisWesterners tend to divide the political world into good democracies and bad authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has evolved a political system that can best be described as political meritocracy. The China Model seeks to understand the ideals and the reality of this unique political system. How do the ideals of political meritocracy set the standard for evaluating political progress (and regress) in China? How can China avoid the disadvantages of political meritocracy? And how can political meritocracy best be combined with democracy? Daniel Bell answers these questions and more. Opening with a critique of one person, one vote as a way of choosing top leaders, Bell argues that Chinese-style political meritocracy can help to remedy the key flaws of electoral democracy. He discusses the advantages and pitfalls of political meritocracy, distinguishes between different ways of combining meritocracy and democracy, and argues that China has evolved a model of democratic meritocracy that is morally desirable and politically stable. Bell summarizes and evaluates the China model--meritocracy at the top, experimentation in the middle, and democracy at the bottom--and its implications for the rest of the world. A timely and original book that will stir up interest and debate, The China Model looks at a political system that not only has had a long history in China, but could prove to be the most important political development of the twenty-first century.Trade ReviewA Financial Times Summer Books Selection Selected as one of Financial Times (FXXT.com) Best Books of 2015 A Guardian Best Holiday Reads of 2015 selection "[I]t is part of the job of academics to ask fundamental questions that challenge conventional thinking. Bell performs this role admirably in lucid, jargon-free prose that leads the reader back to some of the most fundamental questions in political philosophy - refracted through the experience of contemporary China ... I found the questions that Bell raised consistently stimulating."--Gideon Rachman, Financial Times "Bell ... has written a fascinating study. Open-minded readers will find it equips them with a more intelligent understanding of Chinese politics and, no less valuable, forces them to examine their devotion to democracy... [The China Model] isn't just for those who want to better understand China. More than anything I've read for a while, it also forced me to think about what's good and bad about Western systems of government. From start to finish the book is a pleasure and an education."--Clive Crook, Bloomberg View "Bell makes a solid and worthy case for why the outside world might want to think about the Chinese experiment in governance a bit more deeply... This is a very clearly written book."--Kerry Brown, Asian Review of Books "The China Model ... is as important for us as it is for China. If the book brings us some humility about the ways in which an undemocratic model like China's can be deeply rooted in history and culture, it will have done good work. But it will do something better if it can remind us that our own history isn't over."--Rob Goodman, POLITICO "In careful, clear and measured prose, [Bell] works hard to overcome prejudice, defuse emotions and discuss the pros and cons in the cool language of political philosophy. This, perhaps, is the book's greatest contribution."--James Miller, Literary Review of Canada "Serious re-evaluations of democracy are inhibited by two factors: fears about the alternatives turning sour and a century of educational indoctrination that makes imagining the alternatives a frightful exercise. Bell's book should be read as an antidote (or if you prefer, an elixir) to overcome these doubts."--Siddharth Singh, Mint "This book is a welcome addition to the expanding literature on the emerging 'China model'... Bell's argument, based on his long-term observation of China's political development, provides a nuanced, thought-provoking view of the meritocratic aspects of the Chinese system that have been obscured by the broad label 'authoritarianism.' It offers an original explanation for the resilience of the Chinese regime and essentially challenges the widely held notion that liberal democracy is the universally desirable political outcome for modern societies."--Choice "Bell is not an apologist for China but someone who teaches us to ask different questions. And these questions are fascinating."--Mariana Mazzucato, Financial Times, a FT Best Book of 2015 "A must-read scholarly account of China's political development with stimulating questions, powerful analysis as well as theoretically relevant arguments."--Bingdao Zheng, Chinese Political Science Review "This book is a must-read text for all political scientists, in particular, for those who study democracy and democratization. It can open their eyes and help them to move out of their comfort zone to examine the tough and pressing issues in the real world in which democracy and meritocracy must be combined to improve democratic government and solve many practical issues."--He Baogang, Perspectives in Politics "A deeply stimulating contribution to normative political theory."--Thomas Pangle, Perspectives in Politics "In conclusion, Bell's book is interesting and intriguing. It argues convincingly that every political system is a trade-off, and asks important questions about the US (electoral) democracy and Chinese (communist) meritocracy. Bell also develops his own model, combining elements from both."--Dao "A must-read scholarly account of China's political development with stimulating questions, powerful analysis as well as theoretically relevant arguments. The discussion of political elite-recruiting system impressively spans thousands of years, from ages of empires to nowadays, and a number of countries and regions including United States, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan among others. One has to admire the comparative perspective the author puts in various historical periods and social contexts."--Bingdao Zheng, Chinese Political Science Review "A very well-written book that presents original scholarship."--Zhiming Cheng, Political Studies Review "Reading Bell is rewarding... This book is more than a bold challenge to democracy: it serves as a sincere invitation to a sober and less ideologically loaded dialogue between East and West."--Tao Wang, Asian Journal of Comparative PoliticsTable of ContentsPreface to the Paperback Edition ix Acknowledgments xxi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Is Democracy the Least Bad Political System? 14 Chapter 2 On the Selection of Good Leaders in a Political Meritocracy 63 Chapter 3 What's Wrong with Political Meritocracy 110 Chapter 4 Three Models of Democratic Meritocracy 151 Concluding Thoughts: Realizing the China Model 179 Notes 199 Selected Bibliography 283 Index 307
£16.19
Princeton University Press The Work of the Dead
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Winner of the 2016 George L. Mosse Prize, American Historical Association""Winner of the 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature, McGill University""Winner of the 2016 Stansky Book Prize, North American Conference on British Studies""Winner of the 2018 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, Nanovic Institute""Winner of the 2016 PROSE Award in European & World History, Association of American Publishers""2016 Gold Medal Winner in World History, Independent Publisher Book Awards""One of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2015, selected by Alison Light""One of Flavorwire’s 10 Best Books by Academic Publishers in 2015""One of Flavorwire’s 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015""Hardly a sentence in Laqueur's long book is wasted."---John Gray, New York Review of Books"[A] sprawling meditation on mortal remains. . . . Laqueur offers an intricate historical narrative about the place the dead occupy in our lives. . . . The Work of the Dead is a methodologically bracing book."---Thomas Meaney, London Review of Books"Laqueur effectively shows that remains of the dead matter long after they decompose . . . [and his] engaging writing style enlivens this somber subject." * Library Journal *"The product of prodigious research and a subtle and sophisticated knowledge of history, anthropology, and philosophy, The Work of the Dead is as magnificent--and mindboggling--as it is monumental."---Glenn C. Altschuler, Huffington Post"Enormously detailed and absorbing. . . . [A] remarkably supple and fascinating study, providing as it were the sociological and forensic underpinning of every ghost story ever told. . . . The Work of the Dead [is] both provocative and, you should pardon the term, lively (and readers should be sure not to miss the wonderfully argumentative end notes). It'll change the way you look at being dead and buried."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly"Laqueur's book is a monumental undertaking, teeming with so many absorbing anecdotes and so much vivid information that it can be read either compulsively or for an hour a day, just to keep in sight of the nub of our fears and the often romantic absurdity of our hopes and superstitions."---Gregory Day, Sydney Morning Herald"This massive, mesmerizing work contains much that's worth pondering." * Publishers Weekly *"Monumentally learned. . . . Laqueur's mastery of this history, and his limpid prose, make this a deeply engaging text."---Deborah Lutz, Times Higher Education"The Work of the Dead is an enormous, erudite, sprawling, garrulous, exhausting and brilliant piece of work. And it never forgets that thread of 'intuition and feeling'." * Economist *"A major work of scholarship on an undiscovered country, the land of the dead, which, as it turns out, has had major implications for the living. Laqueur's book. . . aims to show that our care for the dead (‘materially and imaginatively') marks ‘the sign of our emergence from the order of nature into culture.'"---Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire"[The Work of the Dead] is, quite simply, an extraordinary book. . . . [I]n short, this is the work of a great historian doing what we all do, only better: reckoning with death as we bide time until our own."---Darrin M. McMahon, Literary Review"Magnificent. . . . Dazzling in its scope, expertly researched and crafted,The Work of the Dead shows us what is important about our humanity and longings. It is also a page-turner and a terrific read."---Sharon R. Kaufman, Los Angeles Review of Books"After being asked what he would like to have done with his body after he died, the Greek philosopher Diogenes replied that he wanted it thrown out for animals to devour. Thousands of years later, his answer can still shock. Thomas Laqueur explains why in his sweeping history of the way humans have grappled with death--an abstract terror made concrete by the bodies that remain when the dead have passed on. Combining anthropological reflections on the cultural functions of the dead with historical investigations of the shifting ways their bodies have been treated, Laqueur uses the stubborn resistance to Diogenes' provocation to explore the world the dead left behind."---Tim Shenk, Dissent"Poetically, powerfully sweeping across human history, Laqueur explores what the rituals of caring for the departed reveal about the living. Their story is ours; their absence shapes art and architecture, communities and civilizations. In every era and every culture, Laqueur finds the dead body imbued with meaning." * Swarthmore Bulletin *"Laqueur's venerable research all leads to one principal concluding thought, which is that while we can know logically that the human corpse is unrelated to the personality it once held, it is the most intimately connected material thing that is left of a life."---Juniper Quin, SevenPonds"Do the dead matter? This is the central question in this meticulously researched, all-encompassing exploration of our mortal remains. . . . In this intimate and often very personal reflection, Laqueur asserts that we need our rituals to serve the dead to smooth over the rent that is caused in the passing of those we love. . . This thought-provoking tome, erudite and finely written, seemingly encapsulates all past uttering on the dead in our fleetingly short lives."---Julie Peakman, History Today"[An] invariably fascinating treatment of a morbid subject." * Choice *"One meticulously argumented stroll through time and beliefs, highly attractive in its depth and far-reachingness. . . . Laqueur has succeeded where many others had not: he opened for us a tiny window on the concept of death and dying without violating historiographic objectiveness or trying to impose judgements or values."---Amir Muzur, European Journal of Bioethics"We look at the masterpiece with awe: How is it possible to do so much, to say so much about the dead in so many societies over such a broad sweep of time, even in a book as capacious as this?"----Annette Becker, American Historical Review"The Work of the Dead is packed with information, surprises, unaccustomed lore and learning, and Laqueur shows throughout a sturdy curiosity, as he digs unflinchingly around and into his chosen topic."---Marina Warner, London Review of Books"Monumental." * New English Landscape *"Laqueur brings prodigious compassion, erudition, and independence of thought to his task: every page is instructive, whether he is discussing the pollution caused by crematoria, the problems of pauper burials, the belief that undressing a corpse and opening windows makes it easier for the soul to leave the body, or just the listing of the names of the dead."---David Ganz, The Review of Politics"Historians of death in particular should thus keep this book at hand. Richly illustrated, detailed and accessible, The Work of the Dead is infused with approximately 35 years of travel, conversations, discoveries in archives and personal experience. It invites all readers to think further about the role that the dead play in the way that we live."---Martin Robert, Mortality"This book is a monumental Magnum Opus covering the cultural history of how we are treated mortal remains. . . . This is surely the definitive treatment of the subject, a landmark and highly readable work."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer
£22.50
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Enforcing Order
Book SynopsisMost incidents of urban unrest in recent decades - including the riots in France, Britain and other Western countries - have followed lethal interactions between the youth and the police. Usually these take place in disadvantaged neighborhoods composed of working-class families of immigrant origin or belonging to ethnic minorities. These tragic events have received a great deal of media coverage, but we know very little about the everyday activities of urban policing that lie behind them. Over the course of 15 months, at the time of the 2005 riots, Didier Fassin carried out an ethnographic study in one of the largest precincts in the Paris region, sharing the life of a police station and cruising with the patrols, in particular the dreaded anti-crime squads. Far from the imaginary worlds created by television series and action movies, he uncovers the ordinary aspects of law enforcement, characterized by inactivity and boredom, by eventless days and nights where minor infractions givTrade Review“Enforcing Order is an intriguing read, not least for what it reveals about the politics of law and order, and of policing, in France in recent times” Tim Newburn, LSE, LSE Review of Books "Powerful, distressing and thought-provoking. The book is based on 15 months of fieldwork, an undertaking unprecedented in France and one that, as the difficulties of access Fassin encountered suggest, will not be conducted again for some time." Times Higher Education "Fassin’s book – the most significant contribution to the public anthropology of policing – has opened up space to discuss the unresolved tension underlying the contemporary state, that between providing security and protecting human rights." Social Anthropology "Fassin has written a brilliant example of public anthropology. This ethnography of the anti-crime squads of the French police powerfully captures the institutionalization of racism and violence against poor youth and immigrants. His book must reach the widest possible audience because these paramilitaries operating out of sight of the general public with the complicity of politicians, career bureaucrats and the courts must be dismantled." Philippe Bourgois, University of Pennsylvania "This vivid description of the daily routines of police squads operating in under-privileged Parisian suburbs reinstates ethnography as a powerful tool for revealing how social exclusion works. By bringing to life, from the point of view of its officers, how the police consolidates social hierarchies, Fassin reminds us eloquently that the behavior of its police forces is the best index of the state of a democracy." Philippe Descola, Collège de France "A fascinating read – a brilliant, deep plunge into the lives, routines, racial tensions, sometimes violence, and intricate moral reasoning of the police officers in an anti-crime brigade in the French banlieues during a heated time of rioting in Paris. It blends a subtle analysis of the moral economy of the police with rigorous ethnographic detail and a genuine honesty or transparency on Didier Fassin’s part. It is a very important contribution to our understanding of police practices in this new age of security." Bernard Harcourt, University of ChicagoTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Preliminary Remarks Preface to the Engish Edition Prologue - Interpellation In which the author comes to understand that it is sometimes dangerous to wait for a bus in the outer city on New Year’s Eve. How policing practice provides the language for a philosophical theory, and how a philosophical theory supplies the meaning of policing practice. That this is not a testimony, and that indignation is not rage. Introduction - Inquiry How the present research was authorized and then forbidden, and that this censorship is revelatory of petty exceptions in a democratic regime. That an ethnography of the police requires resisting the dual temptation of exoticism and culturalism. That a study is often the result of the converging effects of chance and necessity. Chapter 1 - Situation How an imaginary of war came to be established in the relations between the police and the projects. That a brief history of the social question and security issues is essential in order to understand the context in which law enforcement faces classes reputed to be dangerous. That the creation of more aggressive special units was judged necessary to deal with the alleged disorder in the outer cities. Chapter 2 - Ordinary How the daily work of police officers is far removed from the image they had of it when they joined the force, and the illusion they continue to maintain of it. That evaluation of the work of urban patrols yields such unexpected results that it is not taken into account by government. That inaction generates action, and what this phenomenon of spontaneous generation means for the residents of the projects. Chapter 3 - Interactions How stops and frisks serve purposes other than those they are supposed to serve, and prove more effective in perpetuating a social order than in maintaining public order. That the way police officers speak about the individuals with whom they deal throws light on their way of operating in the outer cities. That the theater of police intervention sometimes plays comedies in which not all spectators laugh at the same moment. Chapter 4 - Violence How a criminal court can offer valuable lessons on excessive use of force by the police in the outer cities. That by not reducing violence to its physical aspect and not limiting the definition of it to the legal sense, one can gain a different understanding of it. That there are many ways of preventing police brutality from being prosecuted Chapter 5 - Discrimination How police officers and sociologists challenge the existence of discriminatory practices that the rest of the French population is convinced prevail. That racist ideas do not automatically lead to discriminatory practices, but that the two are far from incompatible. That institutions show more tolerance toward institutional racism than toward its victims. Chapter 6 - Politics How some signs are not deceiving, but may nevertheless be surprising in a democratic regime. That local practices enjoy great autonomy with respect to national guidelines, but that government policy has some influence on the everyday work of law enforcement. That the corollary of the increasing criminalization of behaviors is an unprecedented casting of the police as victims. Chapter 7 - Morality How police officers disappointed by the justice of the courts began to practice street justice. That jokes in the precinct can prove more serious than is customarily maintained. That a code of ethics is not enough to interpret the ethical forces at work in the behavior of police officers and the moral impasse in which the police find themselves. Conclusion - Democracy How the French police preferred the model of the cop in the United States to the style of the British bobby, and what was the result. That the imposition of the rationale of security has a high social cost for contemporary societies. That the interests of ethnography are intimately bound with those of democracy. Epilogue - Time In which the author looks back to a not-so-distant past, observes that the more things change the more they do not stay the same, wonders about the present as it is experienced by certain segments of French society and ignored by the others, and expresses concerns about the future. Notes Bibliography
£18.99
Cornell University Press The Constitution of Selves
Book SynopsisAn amnesia victim asking "Who am I?" means something different from a confused adolescent asking the same question. Marya Schechtman takes issue with analytic philosophy's emphasis on the first sort of question to the exclusion of the second. The...Trade ReviewSchechtman has greatly enriched the discussion of personal identity. This stimulating book enlarges our sense of the philosophically possible. -- Christopher Williams, University of Nevada at Reno * The Philosophical Review *This excellent and engaging book succeeds in raising questions about the dominant approach to asking questions about our identities and our concern for the future, as well as in offering... the beginnings of an alternative way to ask and answer such questions. That's quite a lot of philosophical work in such a short book. * Ethics *
£24.69
